A couple weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times published an essay by Rosanna Xia entitled "To fix climate anxiety (and also climate change), we first have to fix individualism." She expressed her deep anxiety and outright grief over climate change to the point where she was "questioning whether I could ever justify bringing my own children into this world" and that she "can't help but feel like we're just counting down the days to our own extinction."

Ms. Xia isn't the only one experiencing eco-anxiety and questioning parenthood. Jade S. Sasser, an associate professor in the Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside, conducts research "exploring the relationships between reproductive justice, women's health, and climate change." She, too, is plagued by the morality of having children, and hosts the podcast "Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question."

I can't fathom the depths of despair these women must feel to pen such words. As therapy, Xia recommends "climate empathy." She writes, "Acknowledging the emotional toll on people beyond yourself can be an opportunity to listen and support one another. Embracing our feelings - and then finding others who also want to turn their fear into action - can be the missing spark to much-needed social and environmental healing."

This is what concerns me about the progressive obsession with climate change: It is cultivating mental illness. Deliberately, intentionally, purposely, knowingly. Everywhere you turn, you are bombarded with concerns about climate change. Whether the weather is sunny, windy, hot, cold, dry, wet, blizzard-y, hurricane-y, or somewhere in between, "climate change" is the default reason for the season.

The younger generations are fed a constant and never-ending diet of propaganda about climate change, from kindergarten through graduate school. Humans - especially the wasteful humans living in Western nations - are solely to blame for anything and everything weather-related, everything from mudslides in Africa to monsoons in Southeast Asia. Oh sure, articles are out there telling us what kinds of "small acts in your daily life ... can have a big impact on the planet," but such advice is usually followed by despair at how ineffective it is in the grand scheme of things. Can going paperless save the planet? Of course not. This doesn't mean you shouldn't go paperless, but you must also recognize the planet's climate will continue to change - and somehow, somehow, it's all your fault. You exist, therefore you're to blame.

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Now multiply this message a thousand-fold, and you'll start to understand the lesson young people are internalizing. Despite your green lifestyle, there's never any hope things will be OK. Rather, the message is one of hopelessness. No matter what you do, the planet is doomed. You - yes, YOU - are personally at fault for mudslides in Africa and monsoons in Southeast Asia.

To raise impressionable children to believe the problem is so massive that there is no hope is more than bad; it's evil. It's a form of mental torture: convincing young people they're all going to die of something so far beyond their control that there is nothing they can do about it. Sure, you can convince them to live a zero-waste lifestyle and eat vegan, but is that enough to change the planet? Of course not. Ergo, the despair. If that's not mental torture, I don't know what is.

The point of this column isn't whether or not climate change is man-made. The point is how far progressives are willing to go to send young people spiraling into an abyss of desolation about something over which they have no individual control beyond their lifestyle choices. The left is mentally and emotionally battering people about massive global issues far beyond their control, and then telling them they're going to die unless it's fixed in the next few years. This mental abuse starts in kindergarten (or earlier) and continues through post-graduate studies, resulting in entire generations in legitimate emotional agony.

MedicalPress reports, "On a global scale, worldwide Google searches for 'climate anxiety' or 'eco-anxiety' increased by 4,590% from 2018 to 2023, according to a report by Time." It doesn't matter that climate scare stories keep turning out to be false; the goal is to scare everyone into a constant state of hysteria.

To address the issues the climate activists have caused, eco-counselors and even eco-chaplains are offering eco-therapy to address eco-anxiety. Hey, modern problems need modern solutions, right?

But none of this addresses the obvious to these grief-stricken people: that eco-grief is a mental prison of their own making. Instead, they demand societal diktats in the form of stripping people of their individual goals and forcing them to join the collective. No more individual homes, or cars, or appliances, or food choices. That's bad for the planet!

The ultimate goal, of course, is to get people to capitulate to the radical green agenda. Since you, yes you, can't save the planet on your own, it's up to the big-hearted folks at the WEF and other international organizations to do it for you. Who cares if it means billions have to die under their watch for their goals to be accomplished? It's for the good of the planet! Quit complaining.

And if these global elites happen to get even wealthier and more powerful during the process of saving the planet ... well, that was just an unintended consequence. Quit complaining.

The left has elevated climate change to its own religion and uses every possible rhetorical and legislative trick to get you to comply with their beliefs. In the end, though, "persuasion" comes down to the point of a gun. Believe or die.

Ironically, I'm fascinated by green living and have spent decades living by many of the tenets of the green agenda simply because I enjoy the challenge. What I'm opposed to with all my heart, however, is compulsive standards that will destroy Western civilization, enslave its citizens, and hand global power and wealth to a relative few. Remember, the issue is never the issue.

If progressives should fret about anything, fret about that.